Did you watch wrestling growing up?
Yea. I started watching wrestling around 1981. I had a neighbour friend, named Shawn, and I was like “Hey, you wanna go to the park?” He said “No, I’m watching wrestling.” I said “What’s wrestling?” – I was 7 or 8 and I’d never heard of it. I went to his house and we watched WWF, and the one match that stuck in my mind was Rick Martel and Tony Garea losing the tag belts to Mr. Fuji and Mr. Saito. From that day I was drawn into it and hooked, and it was something that I always wanted to do, which my family thought was stupid because I was severely asthmatic. (laughs) I really couldn’t do much of anything! I could barely walk from here to there without having an asthma attack. Growing up it was always something I loved, and it’s my way of escapism from growing up severely asthmatic, as I was.

How did you turn your childhood interest around and get involved in the industry?
Growing up I always watched wrestling on TV and I always read the wrestling magazines. Once I started going to high school I ran into friends who would read wrestling newsletters, like Dave Meltzer’s (Wrestling) Observer, the old Wrestling Flyer John Clark used to do – and in Meltzer’s thing they would put advertising for wrestling schools. I corresponded with a bunch of them, and I even tried out at the Monster Factory, but long story short I met a woman named Phyllis Lee and she was working with Al Snow, who was just starting to make a name for himself at the time through his feud with Sabu in the Ohio. Michigan area. I was pen pals with Phyllis for a while and we talked about the wrestling school for a while, and in bland faith, the day after WrestleMania 10, I drove out to a small city in Ohio – Lima, Ohio – to begin mu journey into wrestling. I lived there for a year with Al. I was saying to AL today, moving to Lima, Ohio and training with him was my version of going to college – or as you say in the UK ‘university’ (laughs). It was such a cool experience. It was my first time away from home. I lived with my mom and my grandparents. They meant well, and they kept a watchful eye on me – “Where you going? Who you with?” – and this was the first time I didn’t have that. I was like Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone. I was running around with all the lights on, TV blaring, two pairs of scissors in each hand – just crazy shit! That was my journey to begin my career – stage one. Luckily I was fortunate enough to find Al Snow, because there are a lot of wrestling schools out there that are just out there to take your money and not give you anything. That was stage one.

Taking it on another step or two, where did the idea of becoming the Blue Meanie come from?
The Blue Meanie idea was completely Raven’s idea. When I was a kid I remember seeing the old ‘Yellow Submarine’ cartoon. It’s interesting as a child, but as an adult it’s more interesting if you’re impaired (laughs) so I never really watched it as an adult. Raven asked me if I’d ever seen the Blue Meanie ever, and I was like “Yea, when I was a kid.” He was like “Aw, you’ll love it. You wanna paint your whole body blue, but just do your hair for now.” He was really trying to sell me on it, and I was so young in the business and I had so much respect for Raven – which I still do. I just wanted an opportunity and I said “Sure, man.” The next day I was at his house and he went and rented it (the Yellow Submarine cartoon” from Blockbuster and it was horrible! Seriously, you need to be drunk or gimmicked up to (watch) – it was a head trip, really! He had me study it and we would even do things like a question and answer segment in character. He would throw out random questions and I would have to give my opinion, my answer to it, just as an exercise in doing a promo and thinking on your feet kind of thing. The original formula for the Blue Meanie was to be devious and planning to rule the world and as we started doing parodies – our first parody was The Fabulous Ones – from there on I deviated away from the original concept of what the Blue Meanie was and basically turned into my own, personal characteristics turned up a notch or two. As Spinal Tap said, we turned it up to 11. I owe the whole character to Raven for giving me the idea and I owe ECW for allowing me to evolve and giving me a platform to be who I was, but the roots of it started with Raven.

You talk about Paul and ECW allowing you to be that character. Given that ECW was unfairly remembered as being the violent/extreme/hardcore type of match, although they had a lot of scientific stuff when Eddie and Dean were there, but how did the Blue Meanie fit into the original ECW?
The Blue Meanie character was kind of a blessing, because there was a little bit of everything in ECW, from the hardcore to the luchas. I got there just as the luchadores were coming in, and there was Taz and Sabu, and you know you can’t give everybody eight matches of the same match. I found it was my niche to be the comic relief. You throw me in there and I diverted a little but from what you had just seen. I was a breather between the luchas and the hardcore and the tables and chairs – you know, here comes the dog and pony show to give you a laugh. Comedy has always been in my nature all of my life. My influences and George Carlin, Bill Hicks, Sam Kinison, Buddy Hackett. I always get off on making people laugh. If l can make people laugh it makes me feel better. And I loved wrestling, so to put the two together and be able to be kind of set apart the rest of the pack. I mean, everybody brought their own things to the show – one match you’re having a really good scientific match with Jerry Lynn, then you’re having chaos with New Jack, then here’s the Blue Meanie, and also Nova and Stevie who were my partners in crime. I couldn’t have been who I was without Nova and Stevie – we were the Three Stooges basically. That was another influence, the Three Stooges – I’ve borrowed from them here and there in the course of my matches. Having the comedic role gave me a chance to be something different and also put years on my life, because I didn’t have to go through the tables and the barbed wire, even though Sandman literally beat the shit out of me every night with a Singapore cane for the first year! I was very fortunate to have that role in the company. I was a spoke in a very unique wheel.

You mentioned some of the parodies you had done – The Fabulous Ones, Baron von Stevie/Bluedust, and so on. It may be unfair to ask, but do you have one that was your favourite parody?
Everybody would expect me to say the Blue World Order. The Blue World Order was definitely my favourite, just for the fact that people still talk about it. I’m on Twitter and people (are going) “BWO, BWO!” I live right near the (ECW) Arena, I’m in the heart of ECW, where ECW was, so me walking down the street – I’m getting BWO and ECW chants on a daily basis (laughs). If not the BWO, the coolest one probably was when we got to be KISS. This answer is probably a revolving one, depending on my mood. I hate giving specific answers because sometimes my opinion changes, but KISS was definitely cool because they had just come back doing the reunion tour and ECW was rock and roll. Well, it was fun until the Sandman came out and caned us! Up until that point, that’s where I stop the tape in my memory! It (the parody) made sense – me being Gene, Stevie being the front man, being Paul Stanley, Nova being Ace Frehley. We had Donny Allen as Peter Criss, which is funny, because it revolved between him and El Puerto Ricano – we had revolving drummers like KISS did in real life. It was definitely fun and unique and I’m just glad Gene Simmons didn’t sue us! (laughs)

Mentioning the BWO – I had a heart-breaking moment earlier on this year. I had been bought a BWO t-shirt at Barely Legal in 1997, but the t-shirt had seen better days, and this year it had to be thrown out. I could have cried! It was like leaving home all over again.
(laughs) Did you play any sort of funeral song that you would normally play?

We were clearing out and my wife was like “You’re 36, throw that out!” I was like “No, it was such a big part of….”

Yea, like “No, you don’t understand! I wanna put it in a frame!” (laughs)

What led to you going to the WWE at the end of 1998?
It was just an opportunity. I appreciate everything I did in ECW, and ECW made me who I am, but I grew up a WWF fan. To branch out and try something different and have that opportunity on a larger scale. All those years my family supported my wrestling habit. I paid my own way through wrestling school, and when I broke out into the indys I’d drive to all these small places for little or no money and when you break into ECW you’re making some money, you’re making okay money, just enough so I could start giving back to the family. I’d just done an indy show and Al Snow called and said “Hey, are you under contract to ECW?” I was like “No.” He asked “If you had an opportunity to go to WWF would you?” I said “Sure!” He said “Ok, here’s an idea that’s being thrown out there for you to be in the J.O.B. Squad.” I was like “Absolutely.” Two hours later Bruce Pritchard called me and asked me for all my essential information and said “We’ll see you in Philly, Sunday – be there.” I was like “Ok!!!!” I hung the phone up, my body was so warm, excited, and I went into the next room where my grandma was and I said “Hey, put the bills in my name. I’m going to the WWF!” ECW afforded me a chance to make a name for myself and to learn, but going to the WWF afforded me to be able to give back to my family who gave me more than I could ever ask for. Besides giving me life, they believed in me and supported me. I missed ECW but I knew I had to do this because any professional would. It was Vince Russo’s idea, because he was a big ECW fan, so I owe a lot to Vince Russo for throwing it out there to bring me in and to Al Snow for facilitating the call to bring me in to do what I always wanted to do – work for the WWF. If you’re a wrestling fan there’s no way you never wanna work for the WWF, no matter how much you say it in public, personally, you want to. It was an awesome experience. I’m very fortunate to be able to do that, with my asthma and all that, so I was very fortunate to be able to get a chance to work for the WWF.

You had been there for a year or two and when you left you went back to ECW. You were there at the time in 2001 when it closed its doors. How sad were you, on a personal and professional level, when that happened?
It was sad. We never realised it until Paul showed up on Raw. Everybody was hoping that something would be pulled out. Even when I was in WWF I heard rumours of ECW’s demise, and also you’d hear about WCW’s demise. I had a chance to go to WCW. It’s like picking a chance get on The Hindenburg or The Titanic. They’re both going down, so if they’re going down in flames I may as well go down with my friends. So I hopped on The Hindenburg – or whatever’s going down the quickest! (laughs) I went back to ECW and luckily I was still getting paid by WWE. I had a two year contract with them which they still fulfilled, so even though I was released they paid me through that October. Financially, it didn’t hurt me, but emotionally it’s tough to see something that you fell in love with die out like that. Especially when they were still drawing – all the shows were still sold out. The cost of maintaining some of the top talent hurt ECW’s business, but I’m grateful that I got to be a part of it. I was lucky enough to be in ECW from 1995-1998, and then I was very fortunate to be in the WWF during the Attitude Era, so I got to be in wrestling when it was cool to say you were a wrestling fan. It’s a shame (it folded). I sit back here and reflect on it like you would your time in high school – all the crazy shit that happened and all the fun stuff that happened. If you told somebody it happened, they wouldn’t believe you. I lived the dream. I got to be a part of something that might not ever happen again.

A year or so after that, you got involved in running a promotion when you opened 3PW. What led to that and do you have any regrets?
3PW was something I was really not looking to do, but something I eventually grew to like doing. 3PW I compared to an unplanned pregnancy (laughs). You’re just fucking around and then “Oh shit! I’m running shows.” The reason why I didn’t wanna do it was……I always asked Al Snow –“You’ve got such a great mind, why don’t you run some shows?” He was running shows at the school, and I was like “Hey, man, why don’t you run your own promotion?” He was like “And why? Put up with all of that bullshit?” The headaches of egos, and paying wrestlers, and hoping the wrestlers would show up! Al always gave me the inkling that it was a bad idea. It happened, and over the course of the years we had our ups and downs. 3PW comes out and we’re like “Cool, we’ll start running some shows.” Then they announced Ring Of Honor starting to run shows (here) and I’m like “What’s Ring Of Honor?” I had no idea that there was this out thing about to happen called Ring Of Honor. ECW had died, there’s a void in the city, maybe it would be cool to run some shows here and there, and when we announced our show the press release for Ring Of Honor comes out and I’m like “Jesus Christ!” That’s when the so-called Philadelphia indy war happened. I guess it was good at the time, it was excitement for fans. XPW tried to muscle their way into town and that’s when 3PW, Ring Of Honor and CZW all partnered together and said no (laughs). Any regrets? I regret the way some of the things went down. When you’re trying to run a show everybody wants you to book them. They think they’re going to get booked because they’re your friend. Sometimes you just have to do things that are right for business, and sometimes people take it the wrong way – I kind of lost friends along the way, but luckily over the years some of those friendships were mended. That’s the one regret – having an ounce of bitterness or bad feelings for someone you like and respect but you just couldn’t do business with, not for any other reason if that makes sense. But I do like the product 3PW put out, I loved the process of watching the shows unfold before the crowd and seeing how they react. Just that feeling of the first show of “Phew! That was fun, what can we do now?” There’s pros and cons when you’re doing business with anything. I’m grateful that people still talk about 3PW to this day. There’s people who say “Are you going to do a 3PW reunion show?” That’d be great – but not with my money! (laughs) If you can find a bunch of people willing to promote a one-time event, sure I’ll put on a 3PW event. Sometimes it’s better to keep the memories instead of trying to re-hash something, and when that happens it’s not as good as the first time. I’m glad for the way it happened. I was kind of relieved (when it ended). It was fun – I’m glad people still talk about it to this day.

You talked about keeping the memory alive and leaving things as they were. I’m loathed to touch on it, but there’s the now infamous incident at One Night Stand in 2005 with the incident between yourself and JBL. Where you aware that something was quite likely to happen?
I wasn’t aware that something might happen up until I was in the ring and I was being stared down and I was like “Oh…..ok…..” We showed up to the arena and all day everything seemed fine, I was even hanging around JBL’s general area. Things were cool and then what happened, happened – and that’s an unfortunate thing. To this day we both kind of regret that it happened. After it happened I had gone on a tirade on the internet, I was legit angry that this happened, as were a few other people. I was seriously considering maybe doing something legally. That’s when I got a call from Tommy Dreamer. He was like “There’s an opportunity for you to come back. This isn’t retribution or anything for JBL.” I was like “Alright” because Tommy’s a good dude. If Tommy tells me something then I can take it as 100%. So, they (WWE) flew me out to Sacramento, California for a Raw/SmackDown Supershow, where they were taping both shows, and I talked to John Laurinaitis. He said “Yea, you’ll come in, we’ll have you wrestle JBL, Batista is gonna run in and Batista bomb in and you’re gonna pin him 1, 2, 3.” I just looked at him and said “Eh, does JBL know this?” He was like “Yea, yea, yea.” HHH came up to me and said “You look nervous.” I said “I feel like I’m being set up for a mob hit!” (laughs) He was like “I give you my word, he’s not going to do anything stupid, blah, blah, blah.” Ten minutes later I’m being called into Vince McMahon’s office, which was very surreal. You walk in, he’s having dinner, eating a steak and watching the promos for the upcoming ‘Hogan Knows Best’ TV show. I’m like “Is this really happening?” He says “Meanie, go have a seat.” So I go into where his couches are and I just laid out all the stuff that happened over the years, the differences we had, my concerns, I didn’t feel safe – he gave me his assurance that everything was cool. Eventually JBL came up and said “You wanna have a talk?” and I’m like “Sure.” We went off to a put of the arena which didn’t help my concerns that I was walking into a mob hit. We walked literally into a part of the arena where I didn’t see an ounce of human life. When you walk around the arena you’d see signs ‘Catering this way’, ‘Make-up this way’, ‘Vince’s office this way’, ‘Arena this way’ – but I saw nothing else that anything for WWE. I was ready to walk into a room full of plastic and have somebody blow my brains out, wrap me up and throw me out in a dumpster somewhere! We walked into the room and JBL shut the door behind him. He was like “Alright, we can either fight or do business.” I went “Well, I didn’t wanna fight in the first place John, that’s what my whole point is.” We had an open and honest discussion of what happened. I laid out everything – I said “This, this and this happened….” To his credit, he said there was a lot of it he didn’t remember, and there’s a good chance he might not have. I took him at his word. At the end of the day he said he liked the ECW guys, he liked ECW and he said it was his idea to bring in Sandman and Balls and Axl, to try to have an opportunity to get these guys work and I’m glad you’re here. I took him at his word, and we had the match. It was the fun match and I got a secondary run there. I was told from the beginning it wasn’t a full time gig, but I got an opportunity to work with Stevie and Nova, which is always a plus, and it gave me chance to do a Pay-Per-View and some TV’s. To this day people still want to bring it up. I’m not talking about you, but it’s just another one of those things – I’m like a folk hero. I’m the little man fighting against Vince and JBL, and things like that. With everything there is to worry about in this world, having a legit interaction in the ring between me and JBL, those wounds have healed. I’ve moved on in life. I’ve got other things to worry about rather than something that happened in 2005. Me and John are Twitter buddies now, which is funny. One day I was on Twitter and if I get so many new followers I’ll go through the list to see who’s following me and I saw JBL. I didn’t really say anything because I wanted to check if it was really him. I mean, there’s a million fake accounts out there – I’ve got a million fake John Cena’s following me – and then a fan pointed out that JBL was following Meanie on Twitter. JBL was like “Yea, I’m following Meanie, I think he’s hilarious!” I was like “Hey, John, how you doing?” You would have thought it was a mid-east peace treaty! (laughs) You know, like Arafat and whoever he’s gotta heat with! It was an ugly incident that happened but like grown men we got together and talked it out and everything’s cool. Like I said, it was an ugly incident but grown men work shit out, especially as in late 2005 I got sick and I had to get an operation to get part of my left lung removed and I was like “Dude, I almost died. Do I really have to fucking keep a burden of a grudge against a man?” When you hold a grudge, it does more harm to yourself than the person you hold it against. It eats you away like a cancer. To hold some sort of resentment wouldn’t have done me any good. The man gave me his word that he was truly sorry and you’ve got to take a person at that. Me and John are cool and I wish him all the best.

Jumping forward to current times, you’ve been involved with Shane’s Extreme Reunion/Rising events. The first show had its ups and downs, but what are your hopes…..
The first one did. The first Extreme Reunion show would have been a great opportunity to try and relaunch, not exactly ECW, but…..

Something akin to it?
Yea. So much time has passed between ECW and now, people long for a show that gave you the feeling of way back when. Look at music. There’s bands like Australian Pink Floyd – they come around and tour and give you the unique Pink Floyd experience that you probably can’t get from the guys now. To put on an event that gives people who weren’t old enough to go and see the original ECW, to give them a flavour of what it was like is a pretty cool thing. At the first show there were a couple of unfortunate things that happened – some fans were rightfully disheartened by it or angry about it. There was a good group of people who were legitimately trying to put on a solid event, but the real shame of it is that our second and third events weren’t our first event. A lot like ECW – when ECW fucked up they owned up to it, and they also made it a point to do right by the fans. One time ECW didn’t make air on TV in New York because of a controversial thing – the New York channel said we’re not gonna air you, so what Paul E. does is he mass produced thousands of copies of that week’s show and me, Nova and a bunch of the wrestlers gave them out to the fans as they were leaving the building. To try to live up to the spirit of the original ECW, when the second and third shows came around we were like “OK, we gotta make this up to the people. We have to turn it up a notch.” The second and third events were phenomenal, and the crying shame is it should have been done first time. That’s with the benefit of 20:20 hindsight. It’s always easier to say what you should have done when it’s already happened. If I could predict how to plan a perfect event and for it to not screw up, I would buy a lottery ticket and buy an island and just go live by myself with my friends and family, and party! We’ve got other events coming up and we’re going to try other markets we used to run, and hopefully we can deliver the same intensity and give the same entertainment as the second and third shows that we did. We’re not trying to recreate ECW, we’re not trying to be ECW, we’re trying to be a flavour of it. The last couple of shows we used guys that if ECW was still around it would probably use these guys. Shane and Kevin and all the guys behind the scenes that run these shows, they’re doing their best to put out a product that will give people that experience again.

As you say, you are still friendly with Al Snow. With Al now having considerable sway in TNA has there been any talk of you heading over there on a permanent basis?
Probably not. I had a chance to go there for their version of an ECW reunion. I got a call from Tommy and they gave me the date, and the unfortunate thing was the date of Hardcore Justice as the day before I was scheduled to go on a vacation that I had already bought and paid for. I said “I would love to come there. Can TNA at least fix my aeroplane tickets, because the following morning I’m supposed to leave Philly at 6a.m. to fly to California? I’ll do it (the show) but can you fly us from Florida to California and I’ll stick to my flight back?” but I never heard back. Tommy said “Would you be willing to film a promo for Hardcore Justice?” I said “Sure” so I met up with the film crew and cut the promo – I had no idea they were doing the whole Blue Tilly thing either. I’m not mad about it. They had a chance to bring me in, but for whatever reason the millionaire energy heiress couldn’t afford to fix my plane ticket, so whatever! (laughs) It’s a shame – TNA when it first came out had so much promise to be competition. Eventually they lost their way and tried to be a WWE clone. It’s easy to say you’re number two to WWE when there’s nobody else in the room. They shouldn’t try to be another WWE they should try to be the first TNA. They had all the money in the beginning, they had all the resources to be an alternative. In my mind, hopefully one day they try to at least be themselves. It’s a shame – people ask me about them all the time. I’ve got a lot of friends who work there. My analogy for TNA is like Hugh Hefner’s bedroom – there’s a lot of wasted talent there. There are so many good workers there, and so many great people, it’s a shame cause I want to watch it, but I can’t sit through one episode. That sucks, because I love wrestling. Like I said, growing up as a kid it was my form of escapism and here I am wanting to see wrestling and I couldn’t be bothered. It’s a shame.

You’ve been involved, this might be the wrong way to put it, in a war of words with some of the stuff that’s been going on with Dawn Marie and Michelle Mupo. You were calling them out on some things that you felt. How do you stand on all of that now or is it gone as far as you’re concerned?
(pause) I don’t know if it’s gone, but the whole situation with Wrestlers Rescue and Dawn Marie and Michelle Mupo is something I wasn’t really looking to throw my hat into this war, or whatever you want to call this argument. It’s something that a lot of people in the wrestling business have said privately. A lot of people have had suspicions about it, but nobody’s ever said anything publicly. When I first heard about Wrestlers Rescue a few of my friends who are in the legal field looked them up and said “This doesn’t sound right. I don’t see a registered number, or whatever.” A lot of the opinions of my friends in the legal field say this smells rotten. Over the years I’ve been asked to contribute to Wrestlers Rescue and I’ve always politely declined because – I don’t hate Dawn Marie – but I don’t wanna be involved with something that I don’t think’s on the up and up. It sounds hypocritical being in the wrestling business, because sometimes the wrestling business as a whole has been dishonest. Whether it’s a wrestler, or a promotion false advertising somebody. There was a convention in San Francisco were they flew all these wrestlers out but the people running it were really bad people and all these people got screwed out of money, and I’m out there and I got screwed out of money too. You hate to be involved in something like that and I’d heard that Wrestlers Rescue wasn’t on the up and up and I just tried to keep my distance. There was a gentleman who used to work for them, Casey Carnage, who would always hit me up on Facebook – “Hey, man, you want to come out to this fundraiser, or you want to donate to this or that?” and I was always either “Hey, sorry I can’t make it” or politely declined. In November 2011 I was doing a signing at a convention in Baltimore that was ECW heavy with talent. I was there, Danny Doring, Mikey Whipwreck, Little Guido, Terry Funk, Sunny was there and Dawn Marie was there with her Wrestlers Rescue table. She came up to each and every table (saying) “Hey, we’re doing
this fundraiser for Jerry Lynn because he’s just had back surgery”, which I had heard about, “would you wanna give something so I can auction it off and raise money for Jerry?” I’m kind of on the spot, and I really wanna say no, but the sucker in me goes “They’re not gonna screw over Jerry, right? The nicest guy in the wrestling business, Jerry Lynn, they’re not gonna screw him over?” I was like “What would you like Dawn? How can I help you?” She was like “Ah, you know, give me a couple of 8x10’s.” so, I just gave her a couple of 8x10’s and thought if I was gonna get screwed, I wasn’t gonna get screwed big time! If they used it, hey, it was a couple of bucks to throw in to a larger pot. That day, she left with a good armful of merchandise. So, fast forward – TNA were running a Pay-Per-View in Philly and Jerry hit me up about hanging out because we always have a blast hanging out together. So many of the boys rarely wanna hang out afterwards like they used to back in the day. We went to my favourite watering hole here in South Philly called McCuskers, and I went “Hey, holy shit, I forgot – what ever happened with you and that Wrestlers Rescue thing?” He goes “I never received a dime.” “Really?” He just looked at me. “I have never received anything.” So, I was like shame on me, but then again if something did happen and I didn’t donate to Jerry I would have felt bad not giving at least something to help Jerry. Fast forward and the Kamala video comes out and I just got fired up. I just got angry. I had always heard rumours that Dr. Death didn’t get anything, and I had heard that a lot of the money raised was going to family members and not the wrestlers. Then I heard the Kamala thing and got fired up. I went to Twitter and said “Hey, I feel bad for Kamala, I’d always heard Wrestlers Rescue was a scam. It’s a shame Kamala got screwed.” I don’t know my correct verbiage, I’d need to read my Twitter page and find out what I said. I guess word got back to them that I said it was a scam, but it’s just my opinion. I’m just giving my opinion, I didn’t state anything as fact. If she started going “Hey Brian, I’m sorry you feel that way”…..but to come out and go “The Blue Meanie’s just bitter, he’s a has been, he’s trying to make a name for himself, he’s trying to put himself on the map.” And then Michelle Mupo (says) “As I’m sitting here tweeting to my 600,000 followers….” You’re a charity, and somebody’s calling your charity into question and your main thing is to come and attack instead of saying sorry you feel that way? You’re a charity, and your response to being called a scam is very uncharitable. That’s when a lot of people…….over this weekend I ran into a lot of wrestlers who were like “Good for you for saying something.” She tried to get on other shows, independent shows to set up a Wrestlers Rescue table and they’re like “That’s cool. What’s your tax payer ID number?” that charities have and she’s like “Eh, eh, I don’t have one.” “Eh…no thank you!” If you can’t produce a tax payer ID…..Again, as they’re coming out with these videos they’re saying there’s Wrestling Rescue and then there’s Pro Wrestling Elite, which up until that video nobody had known there was a secondary charity. So, you got Wrestlers Rescue and Pro Wrestling Elite – one’s for profit and one’s for non-profit, and one can cut a cheque and send money to the other one. It just reeks of a shell game – you put the ball under the shell and you have to guess where the ball is. She said “Hey, we collected all this stuff for Jerry Lynn, but there’s a smear campaign, it’s got Michael Porter, it’s got stuff about us…” and meanwhile she has a guy working for her, named Vinny, and he’s on my Facebook page saying he was the one that was initially lambasting Wrestlers Rescue and doing a smear campaign. So, if this one guy’s saying he did the smear campaign, and she’s saying Michael Porter – who used to be a WWF ring announcer – is doing a smear campaign, and you can’t corroborate your own story, why am I supposed to believe you? Then she said because there was a smear campaign she couldn’t raise the money for Jerry and that they were going to take the stuff everybody had donated for Jerry Lynn and put it towards the next guy. That’s great, but I didn’t give you my stuff to go towards the next guy, but the next guy was Kamala. So, you took all the stuff for Jerry Lynn, you couldn’t do it because of a “smear campaign” then you give it to Kamala. So, Kamala gets a cheque, and Kamala being a veteran pro wrestler did what any veteran pro wrestler would do who was paid by a cheque and called the bank. The bank told him there were insufficient funds to cover the cheque. So why would Kamala, who needs the money – the man desperately needs money – why would he turn down a cheque for $500 and why would he turn around and spend an extra $5 to send the cheque back certified mail? A guy in a wheelchair who needs to get public assistance to go from his home to get his kidney dialysis because of his diabetes. When he comes out and says “Hey, I got screwed over with my money” they turn around and say he’s got ‘mental illness’. They’re supposed to be a charity and they’re acting very uncharitable. It’s a shame – wrestling needs something like that. In the two instances, Dawn Marie’s said she went to the Cauliflower Alley Club to help donate money to Jerry Lynn, and I believe she said to Kamala too, but I’m not sure about that. That’s great, that’s what Cauliflower Alley is there for, but people donated to Wrestlers Rescue for Wrestlers Rescue to give to Jerry Lynn, and you’re just going to sit down on the merchandise. There’s no accounting for it. Who knows if you’re standing up at an indy show selling these items? Not just my items, but any items, to sell them and pocketing the cash. There’s no accountability for any of it. I’m just asking questions, I’m not making accusations, I’m just stating opinions because I wanna know the truth and I don’t believe anything they’re telling me. It’s a shame. Wrestling needs something like this. It’s just another black eye on the business, especially for these people that are 100% behind it and believe in it. I definitely believe there’s some kind of shenanigans going on. There’s no real feud. I made a statement, it doesn’t smell right. I already said one thing, now I’m kind of stuck in rebuttals. It sucks, but I hate seeing people get…..especially guys like Kamala who’s a really good guy. I wrestled him once and there was a spot where I threw a clothesline at him coming off the ropes, and we get to the locker room and he said “Man, you knocked out my tooth on that one clothesline.” I went “Oh my god, I’m so sorry.” He went “No, man, you just saved me $35 – I was gonna go get it pulled on Tuesday!” He was already set to get this one tooth pulled out and I knocked it out with a clothesline and there I am apologising and he’s saying I saved him some money. The guys so selfless about losing a tooth to a clothesline and he has a gripe about something, I believe his gripe is legit. He has no reason to lie. Even Jerry Lynn Said “Did Wrestlers Rescue help me? No. Did Cauliflower Alley help me? Yes.” I mean, if you’re going to be nothing but a referral service for Cauliflower Alley then why is Wrestlers Rescue in business? It doesn’t sit right and it doesn’t pass the smell test.

Just to bring everything around full circle, do you have any words for your fans?
I want to say thank you. Without the fans I wouldn’t be where I am today. Thanks for giving me some sort of attention, thanks for giving me some sort of a reaction, because without that reaction nobody else would wanna use me. I’ve been afforded so many great opportunities, whether wrestling or acting. I’ve got a couple of movies coming out through Wasted Apple films – www.wastedapples.com – I just did a movie that came out on DVD called ‘Community College’ which is hitting the internet this week. I did a movie called ‘Mancation’ that’s coming out on DVD in October/November, another movie called ‘Miss December’ which is coming out on Kevin Smith’s SModcast Pictures. So, without the fans I wouldn’t have been able to do these movies, without the fans I wouldn’t have been able to have one year in wrestling, let along eighteen. Especially the fans in the UK. I say this every time I come over there, the UK fans remind me a lot of the ECW fans, specifically Philadelphia fans, because there’s a passion there and a lot of spirit there. I love the Brits! Even though I watched it from afar on TV, I’d watch concerts from Wembley and the fans singing their asses off along with their favourite song. The concert Queen did from Wembley – Freddie is singing ‘Radio Gaga’ and the Brits are clapping along, it’s a beautiful thing. I went over for the original 1PW shows in Doncaster and Manchester and the interaction and the chants and the cheering between the wrestlers and the fans, it’s so much like my home town of Philly. I instantly fell in love with the country, the city and the people and thanks for giving me an opportunity to entertain you –much as I tried! I’m not going to please everybody, but I’m going to please some people. So I’m fortunate for those who found me a slight bit amusing. Thank you! You can keep in touch with me on Twitter and Facebook. I try to answer the best I can – send in the messages because I read them and love them. I love the fans – thank you!